Thursday, June 17, 2010

My Concealer Search and What I came across along the way....

So lets start this post off by saying I am quite the concealer nut lol. I love to have a flawless face and the biggest part of this addiction is I don't sleep worth a crap so covering my under eye circles is important to me. I think that finding a concealer for the under eyes is quite a challenge especially as you get a little older (I am 26) and get fine line under the eyes for the concealer to settle into. Damn those little buggers. When a concealer settles it never looks pretty. There are some concealers that will settle once during the day and you spread it out and it won't do it again and then there are some that will keep settling in the lines ALL day. I am going to cover a lot of concealers in this post and I will mention how it wears on the face covering any redness and breakouts but honestly my main focus is going to be the under eyes since it is so hard to find the right concealer for under there. If I don't answer a ? about a concealer and you are dying to know or just want to know lol just leave a comment below and I will answer it for you.OK lets get this going cause this is going to be one long post.

Okie dokie so I am going to cover ALL MAC concealers in the first part here because I have tried ALL of them NO I do not currently have ALL of them because I returned what did not work for me.MAC Studio Finish SPF 35 concealer- This concealer is WONDERFUL for covering anything on your face that you want covered. It is VERY creamy and thick. It lasts pretty long on the skin and the finish is completely opaque. It like any other concealer I have ever used accentuates dry spots. Under the eyes this concealer settles just once and when you smooth it out it won't settle again so that is good. This concealer really helps with covering dark circles but it can be a bit drying under the eyes. I do very much enjoy this concealer on days where I barely got any sleep but on days where I am well rested I find it to be to heavy. So I keep this concealer around for facial concealing cause it works GREAT for that.Also I did not know this had SPF in it so that is pretty awesome SPF 30 is very high for any face item so that is a plus in my eyes. ****= 4 stars

MAC Studio Sculpt Concealer- Oh man my least favorite concealer that I have ever come in to contact with. It is so dry! You stick your finger in the pot and its still dry. I would use my finger to warm the product thinking that they may help with the over creamy-ness of this concealer. This is a HUGE no no for under the eyes! I tried it a few times and NO matter how you applied it brush, finger, sponge whatever it settled over and over and over ALL day. I can see this concealer being good for someone with bad acne and or acne scarring like the pit scarring. It is VERY opaque on the skin. Do me a favor if this is a concealer that you are wanting to buy please go to a counter or store and try it before you buy it because this is such a heavy concealer that I can see it not being good for a lot of people. **= 2 stars

MAC Select Cover Up- This concealer comes in a little squeeze tube and the others are in pots so right away that is a sign that this concealer is way thinner then the other 2. I like this concealer a little goes a long way but I needed something that was in between the consistency of this and the other 2. It seems a bit too thin. This is just OK for under the eyes. I don't prefer it and I really don't prefer it for any breakouts I just think that I have other concealers that do the job better then this does. For redness this is great. If you apply it before your foundation or tinted moisturizer it works great. No redness at all and it stays put but honestly that is the only thing that I would use this concealer for and I highly recommend giving it some time to dry before you put your foundation over it or you are just going to rub concealer all over your face. **= 2 stars

MAC Select Moisturecover- I just bought this concealer a week ago and I was VERY hesitant to do so because this was the last concealer that MAC offers that I haven't tried. I wasn't thrilled with the other as you can see so I pretty much saved the best for last. This comes in a tube like a lip gloss with a doe foot application and to be honest I prefer them in this style packaging. First off there is no germs going on the concealer to cause more breakouts and I can travel with this far easier then any other concealer that MAC offers. The formula is just what the name says moisturizing which I find 100% completely necessary for under the eyes as with other concealers tend to cake and make my under eyes more dry then they already are. It glides on super smooth and covers with a medium coverage. This works better then ANY other concealer that I have bought with the intentions to use under my eyes. It works great on the face as well. As I mentioned above when you have a break out during the healing process it gets dry and flaky this is normal but when going to conceal something like that it can be very troublesome. This concealer being moisturizing really helps with that. It still accentuates the pimple you will never get away from that 100% but it isn't near as bad as any of the other concealers that I have mentioned and will mention. This is now my HG (holy grail) concealer! It doesn't settle it covers nicely and works well on the face with break outs and redness so I HIGHLY recommend this concealer to anyone looking. *****= 5 stars

All the MAC concealers that I mentioned you can buy from www.maccosmetics.com or at any MAC counter or store. They ALL retail for $16.50 which is nothing compared to the cost of other high end concealers. Yes drugstore concealers are cheaper by a couple bucks but save yourself the hassle of color matching and actually getting a good one and try something out from MAC to suit your needs they have a great return policy if something doesn't work out for you.

I am going to periodically update this with new concealers because there are A LOT to cover so keep checking back to see what has been added and if there is a concealer you would like reviewed let me know in a comment and I will review it! THANKS!!